On November 16 2017 12:25 DaCruise wrote: So apparently the US is looking for possibilities to host a "B" World Cup this summer for some of the teams that didnt qualify. Good luck with that.
Wouldn't FIFA shut that down pronto? Also, who cares? Who exactly is interested in "the best of the rest"? Even if Netherlands is in the latter cup, I'll still be more interested in the actual world cup. It was our failure to qualify and a losers cup has even less appeal than the match for 3rd place: at least if you win that you're 3rd. If you win the loser's cup you're what? 33rd? :'D
I have seen many times that the match for 3rd place is "meaningless". But why do people say that in football? There are matches for bronze in other sports too and I never saw them labeled as useless. Also SF finish is not celebrated as much as 3rd place finish.
Why is 3rd place meaningless in football?
I dunno. Unlike the olympics, nobody ever counts second or third places for football world cups. You're either the winner, or one of the losers. Why is it like that? I don't know. It just is. Same for other football tournaments. Hell, CL doesn't even have a match to decide third place (nor do national cups).
Theorycraft: Maybe it is because in football there are many tournaments that can get you a lot of attention. Over a four year course, a highlevel player gets a shot at winning 14 titles (4x national league, cup, champions league, 1x world cup, continental championship), and for all of these you will get a lot of attention. Now compare this to other sports who barely get any coverage for their leagues, cups etc. Basically, over four years, you get 1x world cup, 1x continental championships, 1x olympics (which usually has a very resticted number of entrants in team sports) as chances to make a splash. So that is not even one tournament per year where you can draw attention to yourself, and in this sense getting one medal out of nine might be a bigger achievement than getting one title out of 14. edit: Sorry doublepost.
you guys are just spoiled by being from real footballing nations. In Norway people still mention that we got a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics.
I have no idea how we actually had a good team back then, but seems like we did. Both 36 and 38 we lost 2-1 after extra time against eventual winners Italy.
On November 17 2017 01:47 Liquid`Drone wrote: you guys are just spoiled by being from real footballing nations. In Norway people still mention that we got a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics.
I have no idea how we actually had a good team back then, but seems like we did. Both 36 and 38 we lost 2-1 after extra time against eventual winners Italy.
You guys were halfway decent in 98. I remember being particularly upset about the win over Brazil.
On November 17 2017 01:47 Liquid`Drone wrote: you guys are just spoiled by being from real footballing nations. In Norway people still mention that we got a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics.
I have no idea how we actually had a good team back then, but seems like we did. Both 36 and 38 we lost 2-1 after extra time against eventual winners Italy.
With Swedes eliminating Italy, you'll surely be unstoppable.
On November 17 2017 01:47 Liquid`Drone wrote: you guys are just spoiled by being from real footballing nations. In Norway people still mention that we got a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics.
I have no idea how we actually had a good team back then, but seems like we did. Both 36 and 38 we lost 2-1 after extra time against eventual winners Italy.
You guys were halfway decent in 98. I remember being particularly upset about the win over Brazil.
Fun stat: Norway is the only team to have played against, but never lost to brazil. Four games in total.
During the 90s we were legitimate good. Peaked at #2 fifa rank. (We were like #87 or something recently now) In we won our world cup qualification group for 1994 ahead of netherlands, england poland and turkey. qualification for 98 we ended up with a much easier one (switzerland, finland, hungary azerbaijan), but then we also smashed it 6-2-0 with +19 gd. qualification for 96 EC we got third with 20 points, behind czech republic (21 points) and nethelands (20 points). qualification for 2000 EC we won 8 and 10 points ahead of slovenia and greece. But the best tournament performance we did was losing 0-1 to italy in ro16.
During this period we also had Rosenborg qualifying for the champions league 8 seasons in a row, 20+ norwegian players playing each season in the premier league (the united treble team from 1999 had 4 norwegians, 3 of them playing regularly), etc..
Then we got blinded by our success, wanted to play more 'attractive' and possession based football, started favoring small technical players rather than the strong, super hard workers of the 90s.. Like our team during the 90s was like a reverse guardiola team - our philosophy was basically 'have a left defender with awesome crossing ability - have a super tall and strong right wing, left defender crosses to right wing, then fast tireless midfielders crowd the area where the ball is likely to end up, be super aggressive to get possession if the ball is near their goal, disregard possession entirely if it's near yours. Like our manager had seen statistics indicating that you were more likely to score during the next 1 minute if your opponents' defense had the ball than if your own defense had the ball, so our defenders, if they got the ball, would just kick it as far up as possible. 10 years later we had lost our identity, didn't have the player base to go back to our roots from the 90s and didn't have the technical ability to play successfully any other style.
Now we're starting to get a bunch of pretty good technical midfielders and some decent strikers and taller players who excel at duels again, so we should do better the next decade than we've done the past 15 years. And Martin Ødegaard is starting to look pretty damn good again, after a slow couple years. ;P
On November 17 2017 02:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: Then we got blinded by our success, wanted to play more 'attractive' and possession based football, started favoring small technical players rather than the strong, super hard workers of the 90s.. Like our team during the 90s was like a reverse guardiola team - our philosophy was basically 'have a left defender with awesome crossing ability - have a super tall and strong right wing, left defender crosses to right wing, then fast tireless midfielders crowd the area where the ball is likely to end up, be super aggressive to get possession if the ball is near their goal, disregard possession entirely if it's near yours. Like our manager had seen statistics indicating that you were more likely to score during the next 1 minute if your opponents' defense had the ball than if your own defense had the ball, so our defenders, if they got the ball, would just kick it as far up as possible. 10 years later we had lost our identity, didn't have the player base to go back to our roots from the 90s and didn't have the technical ability to play successfully any other style.
Sounds quite similar to what Iceland is doing right now.
Yeah absolutely. And we hired their former manager (Lars Lagerbäck) in an attempt to go back to our roots, and he has already started favoring bigger, stronger players rather than the technically gifted bunch we started developing lots of in the mid 2000s.
Iceland 2010+ progress is even more impressive than Norway 1990+ progress, as they have like 8% of our population, but aside from that there are a whole lot of parallels.
On November 17 2017 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote: Yeah absolutely. And we hired their former manager (Lars Lagerbäck) in an attempt to go back to our roots, and he has already started favoring bigger, stronger players rather than the technically gifted bunch we started developing lots of in the mid 2000s.
Iceland 2010+ progress is even more impressive than Norway 1990+ progress, as they have like 8% of our population, but aside from that there are a whole lot of parallels.
To be fair, in the long run, the experiment was worth atleast trying. The thing with depending on technically gifted players is that without the bedrock of the physical behemoths that play the structured low risk style you will struggle long term because very countries produce that kind of player consistently and of a high enough calibre to be relevant consistently.
The issue with that style is that there while its safe and bring you to a decent level. It will plateau depending on the state of the game at the time. So in that sense I wouldnt blame them from deviating from the roots to much. And you never know, maybe fostering that culture and going back to the original one might even allow you to strike a healthy balance. Just my opinion though.
Yeah if we strike a healthy balance, that's great. During the 90s we had a couple small, technical midfielders (Erik Mykland for Norway, Ørjan Berg for Rosenborg), but they were the ourlier players and were coupled with 9 tall strong guys. Barcelona type of dominance is harder to execute and requires a deeper talent pool than 'run fast give everything you have in duels be strong' does - the latter is how pretty much all the smaller nations without a strong preexisting football culture succeed, be it Norway during the 90s, Greece 2000, or Iceland now.
The thing is that if you look at Norway during the past 5-10 years, virtually all our prime talent has been in of the small technical offensive midfielder ability, whereas from a national team point of view we don't really need more than 2 of those. The current U21 team looks good though, and way more balanced. There's Martin Ødegaard who functions as the creative genius and then the rest is technically capable but not so one dimensional. I think a future midfield of like Sander Berge, Martin Ødegaard, Ole Sælnes, Martin Samuelson has a whole lot of potential. (Ole Sælnes being the oldest of those at 23, all of them are good enough for teams in the top half of the top 4 leagues.) Sadly they fucked up the WC qualification through employing an ineligible player against Kosovo (leading to a 5-0 victory becoming a 0-3 loss), and despite winning against Germany in our first match against them that one fuckup looks too costly.
The Norway 98 team had tons of players in top Premiership teams. You need to have a core of players at top European teams to have a decent enough chance to make it in major competitions. Today you can'tt make it to those teams by playing hoofball, you make it by being really good technically and tactically.
So how scared should we be of Germany this year? I'm honestly asking, since I rarely watch Bundesliga football and most of its NT plays there.
On November 17 2017 03:46 warding wrote: The Norway 98 team had tons of players in top Premiership teams. You need to have a core of players at top European teams to have a decent enough chance to make it in major competitions. Today you can'tt make it to those teams by playing hoofball, you make it by being really good technically and tactically.
So how scared should we be of Germany this year? I'm honestly asking, since I rarely watch Bundesliga football and most of its NT plays there.
No, you just need to play like a team where everyone gives everything for each other ala Iceland style. If you don't have that then yes you need technically gifted players.
Germany is scary as fuck. They don't even lose friendlies nowadays.
They drew friendlies vs two strong teams... England are world class in friendlies and Germany usually lose friendlies.
Do you even realise what it means when Germany stops losing friendlies? Their talent is so high that they can do anything and still not lose anymore.
Their Conf Cup team was their B/C team vs other nations' A teams and they won comfortably... Germany are the biggest favourites by far. Only France comes close
On November 17 2017 04:08 sharkie wrote: They drew friendlies vs two strong teams... England are world class in friendlies and Germany usually lose friendlies.
Do you even realise what it means when Germany stops losing friendlies? Their talent is so high that they can do anything and still not lose anymore.
Their Conf Cup team was their B/C team vs other nations' A teams and they won comfortably... Germany are the biggest favourites by far. Only France comes close
The German machine is truly maturing after our reforms from the early 2000's.
Be prepared to be rolled over by ruthless, clinical, and humorless efficiency for the next generation.
The German machine is truly maturing after our reforms from the early 2000's.
Be prepared to be rolled over by ruthless, clinical, and humorless efficiency for the next generation.
Think the core of German players are not as good now as few years, think Ozil, Reus, Draxler and Muller are not preforming on as high an level. So don't think they are the favorites to win the WC. Think France squad looks stronger now, and Germany is among the best of the rest with Spain, Brazil and even Argentina (if they can figure out how to play together).
The German machine is truly maturing after our reforms from the early 2000's.
Be prepared to be rolled over by ruthless, clinical, and humorless efficiency for the next generation.
Think the core of German players are not as good now as few years, think Ozil, Reus, Draxler and Muller are not preforming on as high an level. So don't think they are the favorites to win the WC. Think France squad looks stronger now, and Germany is among the best of the rest with Spain, Brazil and even Argentina (if they can figure out how to play together).
This seems kind of odd, since Germany's international play hasn't suffered one bit.
They've looked consistently fantastic and even won the Confederation's Cup with their C team. Like it's always been, this isn't a team of superstars; it's a well-oiled machine that works so well that there's almost indistinguishable depth in the midfield. The only weakness over the past couple years has been up front, and with Werner joining the team that may be solved as well.
People love to hype the superstars, but that hasn't helped teams like Argentina, France, or Belgium in the last couple tournaments.
EPT
